Condemning extraordinary police raid on peaceful climate campaigners

Greens NSW MP Abigail Boyd has condemned today’s extraordinary police action to raid a property in the Blue Mountains and arrest climate campaigners under suspicion of planning a peaceful protest action.

Quotes attributable to Greens NSW MP Abigail Boyd:

“The actions of NSW Police today, launching a preemptive raid against a property with a hundred armed police, dogs and helicopters, on suspicion of planning a protest action, is a terrifying overreach and abuse of power against peaceful climate campaigners.

“That police felt emboldened under this new anti-protest legislation to take this extraordinary authoritarian action should send a shockwave of alarm throughout our society - it is exactly the kind of assault on our democratic rights we warned of when these terrible laws were rushed through just months ago.

“We have won so many of the rights we now take for granted through protest actions and civil disobedience, but both of the major parties in NSW have joined together to pass laws that give police licence to intimidate residents and raid properties on the mere suspicion of a peaceful protest being planned.

“The Greens utterly condemn today’s police action. We must resist this authoritarian creep towards a police state.

“The NSW Liberals have been busy these last weeks spinning a pre-election narrative as a more cuddly and socially progressive party that is distinct from their federal counterpart - but it’s in these actions that they once again show their true colours. They’re trying to tell us they want to give the people of NSW a leg up, when really all we get is the boot.”

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

NSW is missing out on tens of billions of dollars. By introducing a progressive coal royalty structure similar to the one in Queensland, we would have raised an extra $20 billion last year.

The NSW Government owns and controls, on behalf of the people of this state, the rights to the minerals and materials that naturally occur in NSW land.

Huge fossil fuel companies are only able to extract and sell these commodities with the consent of the State. It’s time they paid a fair price for that privilege.

The fossil fuel industry has made hundreds of billions of dollars out of their cosy relationship with governments. Granted permission to extract and sell coal, these large multinational fossil fuel corporations pay just over 7% in royalties back to the people of NSW – keeping the rest as mega-profits for themselves. These companies have a track record of taking more than their fair share and leaving communities suffering and stranded with poisoned groundwater, devastated landscapes and a stranded workforce when it suits their business models.

Globally, the hyper-inflation of fossil fuel prices driven by price-gouging opportunism and war profiteering from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered record windfall profits to these already obscenely wealthy corporations. In the last year, NSW coal exports totaled over $70 billion dollars, but the people of NSW will only see about 7 cents in every dollar, or about $6 billion dollars of that amount.

Rather than going toward schools, hospitals and public infrastructure, billions of dollars went into the pockets of multinational mining corporations. The Greens believe there should be more money for schools and hospitals and less for mining billionaires.

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

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Condemning extraordinary police raid on peaceful climate campaigners

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

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